A robot is generally an electro-mechanical machine guided by a computer or electronic programming. Mobile robots have the capability to move around in their environment and are not fixed to one physical location. An example of a mobile robot that is in common use today is an automated guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV is generally a mobile robot that follows markers or wires in the floor, or uses a vision system or lasers for navigation. Mobile robots can be found in industry, military and security environments. They also appear as consumer products, for entertainment or to perform certain tasks like vacuum cleaning and home assistance.
Some robots may use a variety of sensors to obtain data about its surrounding environment, for example, for navigation or obstacle detection and obstacle avoidance. A spinning LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor can be used to detect obstacle; however, it typically spins rather fast (e.g., 600 RPM to have a 10 Hz frame rate on any sector portion of the image) and is therefore generally not suitable for indoor operations. The spinning LIDAR has limited positioning on a robot. For example, its generally position on top with an unobstructed field of view, rather than in the middle of a robot, which generally has mechanical and electrical structures passing therethrough.